Guide to childlanglab

Recruit kid participants

Purpose

Our lab only exists if families participate in our studies! We need the families to be able to do the fun things in our lab like making experiments, looking at data, and writing papers. Therefore, recruitment is the most important aspect of our lab.

Procedure

1. Sign-ups for our kid studies can range from new to existing participants (as long as the existing participants in the database have not yet taken part in the study we are recruiting for)
2. Each study will have a specific age range; we will also usually require that a participant does not have hearing loss, vision loss, or language delay and is a native English speaker (make sure with your grad student about their expectations for recruitment)
3. If a child fits into a study’s requirements and has never participated in the study before, you may send the family a welcome message through the database
   • For writing to new participants, go to the participant’s profile in the database, click on Email and select Welcome eligible template from the drop down list
   • For writing to existing participants, select Study invitation template from the drop down list
   • Fill in the appropriate study name, experiment, scheduling link, and payment type (if you are unsure about something, please make sure with the grad student or lab manager)
4. New sign-ups will appear on the lab’s Google Calendar and on the scheduling platform
5. Make sure to add the participant to the study subject log
   • Include the participant’s name, subject ID, scheduled date and time for testing, and the parent’s name and email address
   • Mark the participant’s status as “Scheduled”
6. Send them a consent form from Hello Sign
   • Put yourself as the researcher (don’t forget to sign the form!)
   • Make sure the consent form is signed by the participant’s parent before the study takes place
7. On the day of the study, send a reminder email that includes the correct Zoom link and the date and time of the participant’s scheduled study slot
   • You can find the template by going to the participant’s profile in the database, clicking on Email, and selecting Study reminder template
8. Run the participant!

FAQs

• What should I do if I reached out to some families, but they didn’t sign-up?

  Sometimes, families are just busy at the moment! Try to reach out by sending a reminder email after a week.

• What should I do once I run a child participant?

  Send the family a thank you email with the amazon claim code by using Amazon payment template. Upload the Zoom recording to the database (and mark that this has been done in the subject log). Then, on the subject log, also change the participant’s status to “Complete” and mark that they have been paid.

• What should I do if the participant does not show up to the study?

  Send the family an email asking if they would like to reschedule for another day and time.